


heavy body

by librarby



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (neither is martin but thats beside the point), Body Dysphoria, M/M, Nonbinary Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), he/him pronouns for jon, nonbinary author, only a few allusions but its important that you know hes not cisgender, trans author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:02:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26089867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/librarby/pseuds/librarby
Summary: He can conceptualize it all inside his head well enough, the way he feels like a stranger (lowercase S) in his own body. How, at an atomic level, he’s still Jon, but every stage above that feels wrong and alien. Like Jonah had reached his hand inside his chest and twisted until even his insides were unrecognizable.Instead of all that, however, what comes out of his mouth is this: “When a star explodes at the end of its life, the materials left over often coagulate back together to form a new star after millions of years.”[title from body by mother mother]
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 10
Kudos: 132





	heavy body

**Author's Note:**

> my vastard jumped out just a bit while writing this...i rlly like space ok > <

The sun had set an hour or two ago, casting the Scottish countryside in a warm orange glow. They’d sat on the rickety back porch for a while, listening to the buzzing of bugs out in the grass and staring up at the sky (Jon can find all the constellations, now that he Knows where they are). 

Martin had wandered back in after a while, the cold finally getting to him, but Jon had stayed. 

The stars were brighter out here than in London, still brighter than home in Bournemouth. Beholding pressed against the door in his mind, trying to tell him how far away each star was and the name and whether it was a dwarf star or a supergiant or part of a binary pair–

He pushed back, wanting to just...enjoy something for once, simply for what it was. A night sky full of pinpoints of light, nothing more and nothing less. Just him and the sky. 

(For a split second he thinks he might understand Simon Fairchild, then hates the thought so much that he has to shake his head to dismiss it.) 

Eventually the cold does push him inside, where he swipes one of Martin’s sweaters from where it is hanging on one of the kitchen chairs and pulls it over his head, making his way to the bedroom. 

Martin looks up from where he’s sitting back against the headboard, book in hand. “Hey.” He says, a little smile appearing on his face. 

“Hi.” Jon says, fiddling with the sleeves (one of the problems with being rail thin is that one’s boyfriend’s clothing has the tendency to entirely engulf one’s hands). 

“Time for bed?” Martin asks, sliding a tiny paper scrap between the pages of his book to mark his place. 

As if on cue, Jon yawns. “Yes, I think so.” He says, glancing at the window. The night sky hovers over them like a blanket. 

Jon gets to the bathroom first, pushing open the door with a squeak. He flicks on the light, which buzzes as it springs to life. 

The person in the mirror stares back at him, tired looking eyes and tangled hair. It’s not him, but it is him, and that makes an uncomfortable knot begin to form in his stomach. 

He tears his gaze away, picking up the plastic hairbrush on the countertop, starting to drag it through the knots in his hair as Martin enters. 

(The room gets just a little colder until they brush shoulders, and then it returns to its normal temperature.) 

Jon turns back to his reflection, trying to focus on the repetitive motion of the brush pulling through his hair. 

It’s hard to look at himself sometimes, to see the physical manifestation of the fears standing out against his skin. By the time he’d made a shaky peace with the worm scars dotted around his face and neck, his hand was added to the collection, and before he could blink, he was a walking chronicle of everything that had tried to kill him. 

He’s not even sure if he looks like _Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist_ anymore, and even less so _Jon_. Where does he end and the horrors begin? At what point does he become more scar tissue than skin, endless patch jobs weaving together what’s still left of him? 

When do you cease to be some _one_ and become some _thing_?

“Hey.” A gentle voice breaks him out of his daze and his eyes flick to the side. 

Beside him in the mirror, Martin’s reflection is blurry around the edges. The outlines of his face show a few spots of faded color, areas where the bright tones have become muted. Still, he’s smiling, with his toothbrush between his teeth, and Jon has to smile back. 

“What’s wrong?” 

The smile on his face switches to a frown as Jon turns to glare at himself again in the mirror. The brush catches on a particularly tough snarl and he grumbles a little bit trying to yank it through. “Just thinking.” He mutters. 

(They’ve talked about this, about Jon opening up. It’s just...it’s hard, okay? All he wants right now is to sleep, not to get into the intricacies of if he is closer to the 'being' end of the spectrum than the 'human' side.) 

Martin drops his toothbrush back into the little cup by the faucet and holds out his hand. “Give it here.” 

Jon sighs again but gives the brush to Martin, who starts gently running it through his hair.

Now needing something to do with his hands, he elects to brush his teeth. Before he’s even finished with that, Martin has successfully untangled his hair and it now falls in gentle waves over his shoulders. 

He rinses his mouth out and stands up. 

Behind him is a cloud of fog. 

Jon waves it away with a frown and steps back into the bedroom. Martin is pulling a pair of red flannel pajama bottoms over his hips. The bedroom is a little cold. 

For a moment, Jon considers changing himself but has to suppress a shudder at the idea of seeing any more of his body (scar tissue and protruding bones and empty spaces—) so he just drops himself into the bed, clothes and all. He’s in sweatpants, it's a totally normal thing to sleep in sweatpants, right? 

(As if Jon knows what counts as normal, anymore.)

“Are you sleeping in that?” Martin asks as though reading his mind, a little note of amusement in his voice. Jon makes a noncommittal sound, adjusts the sweater against his body, and rolls over to face him.

The bed dips as Martin crawls in, pulling the thick duvet up to his waist. He shifts, reaching over to click off the bedside lamp. 

Jon stares at him until darkness obscures his vision. 

Martin is different too, so far removed from the man who he knew before the coma, and even more different from the one who let a _dog_ into the Archives on his first day.

He doesn’t _look_ different, at least not on the outside. There’s a shock of white running through the front part of his hair, but other than that, he still has the same features and smile of the man who used to scare the daylights out of him by entering his office unannounced with tea. 

But he’s changed, and Jon hates that he doesn’t know how much of that change was from Peter Lukas or from the months that he spent lying in that hospital bed. 

Jon sighs and shifts closer to Martin. 

Touch can be painful for Martin (a side effect of the Lonely, almost certainly), but tonight he seems fine as he reaches out to wind an arm around Jon’s waist. Jon shifts closer still, pulling one of his arms out to adjust the sweater sleeves again. 

“Martin?” He says finally, after they’d been laying in darkness for a few minutes. Jon can see a little better now, the faint glow from the nightlight they keep plugged into the wall in the hallway seeping under the door. The outline of the dresser and curtains are oddly comforting, keeping watch over them. 

He knows Martin isn’t asleep and this is confirmed when he receives a tired but coherent “Yes?” 

Jon stares at the ceiling. Explaining himself is difficult, especially to Martin. He wishes he could just reach inside his head and pull his thoughts out, one by one, and wave them in front of Martin’s eyes like a slideshow until he understands. 

He can conceptualize it all inside his head well enough, the way he feels like a stranger (lowercase S) in his own body. How, at an atomic level, he’s still Jon, but every stage above that feels wrong and alien. Like Jonah had reached his hand inside his chest and twisted until even his insides were unrecognizable.

Instead of all that, however, what comes out of his mouth is this: “When a star explodes at the end of its life, the materials left over often coagulate back together to form a new star after millions of years.” 

Martin carefully drags his fingers across Jon’s back, as though he’s scared if he pushes any harder, he’ll shatter into pieces (and honestly, the way he’s been feeling, that wouldn’t be surprising). “A supernova, right?" 

(Martin’s used to it by now, the way he’ll open his mouth to speak and all that comes out is bits of Beholding, whether intentional or not.)

This was an accident, likely brought on by their time out on the porch earlier, but the more he thinks about it, the more it seems like an excellent analogy. “It’s the same...the same _material_ , but it’s a different star. A new form, built with old scaffolding.” He says, then starts speaking faster, stumbling over each word as it collides with the next. “Even, uh, even though it’s made of something dead, it’s different, something completely new built out of what was there–”

“Jon.” Martin says his name so softly that he freezes. Outside, the bugs are still chittering at one another, filling the otherwise quiet air. “Breathe.” 

Jon does as he is told, sucking in a deep breath. 

(He imagines stardust filling his lungs, light bursting from his chest.)

“What’s actually bothering you?” Martin says once he’s taken in a few shaky breaths. 

It takes some focus to push back against what Beholding _wants_ him to say ( _the red supergiant Betelgeuse is one of the strongest supernova candidates, set to explode within 100,000 years_ ) and try to get some of his own thoughts out. 

“I don’t know how much of me is still...me.” He says finally. “I know I’m still objectively me, but I don’t feel like it, and I certainly don’t look it.” 

“Neither of us are the same person we were when we started this.” Martin says, the warmth of his breath coming out in puffs against Jon’s ear. “I don’t think that’s necessarily bad, though.” 

“I don’t even know if I’m a _person_ anymore, Martin.” Jon whispers, moving so he can finally look Martin in the face. “After everything that happened, I’m…I’m not even sure what I am. Am I a person? A monster? I don’t know.”

Martin flinches back a bit from his sudden gaze, but quickly settles back into it. “Why do you need to know?”

“What?” Jon frowns. “That’s my whole thing, Martin. I’m supposed to know.” 

Martin’s hand presses more firmly against his back. “Maybe you're supposed to, but that doesn't mean you have to. There’s plenty you don’t label for yourself, and your humanity doesn’t have to be named either.” 

Once again, leave it to Martin K. Blackwood to point out the incredibly obvious solution to his problems that he had been overlooking the entire time. 

(Still, _just ignore it_ is easier said than done.)

“You’re not the only one who’s different now, Jon.” Martin says quietly. “You may not be able to recognize yourself in the mirror, but sometimes I can’t even see myself in the first place.” 

The hand on his back goes ice cold for a few moments, until he reaches out and places a hand on Martin’s cheek. 

“I know.” Jon strokes his thumb in a little circular motion, feeling the pad of his thumb catch against the stubble on Martin’s face. “I’m sorry.” 

“You don’t need to apologize.” Martin puts his hand over Jon’s and pulls it away from his face long enough to press a kiss to his palm. 

Jon takes in another breath of sparkling stardust. “I love you.” He says, feeling the words take shape in his mouth, floating among galaxies and planets, forming out of what already lies in his chest. 

Martin smiles. Martin smiles and it’s as though a thousand stars are bursting inside his chest. 

“I love you too.” He says, pulling him closer. “Now get some sleep.” 

A few weeks later, Jon receives his answer of who he is. 

He is the Archivist, the Bringer of the Apocalypse, Jonah’s perfect plan, a chronicle of fear. He is power and weakness, terror and joy, pain and satisfaction all wrapped up in one. 

After the coma, he was the Archivist. A job, a title given to him after returning from the dead. 

After the letter, he is the Archive. A place, a _thing_ , somewhere to rummage around and pull out what you need. 

He should hate this. He knows (Knows) he should, but he doesn’t. 

Martin Blackwood looks at the Archive in the same way he looked at the Archivist, and at Jonathan Sims, and at Jon. 

Some things cannot be changed. 

**Author's Note:**

> kudos and comments feed the Dark Sun!  
> find me on tumblr @ jonbinary :--)


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